


Maybe You Believe

by NeonDaisies



Series: Relationship Negotiation 101 [4]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Claire only seems confident but in reality she's a human, F/M, Matt isn't really in this, relationship discussion and exploration, you don't need to read the rest of the series to understand any of this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 17:43:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8294557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeonDaisies/pseuds/NeonDaisies
Summary: A story in which Claire Temple discusses the problems that come along with starting a relationship with a man the newspapers call Daredevil. Alternatively, a story in which Claire Temple is a strong, independent woman who recognizes that she wants an equal partnership with someone she cares deeply for but shows no apparent signs of having had a healthy long-term relationship before. Alternatively, Claire Temple takes care of herself and needs reassurance that it's okay to do that.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I started this fic over a year ago and I'm just now happy with it. At one point I said to myself, "What if Claire and Father Lanthom meet each other," and this is the result of that. I've been chipping away at it ever sense but now my story arc in Another Night is somewhat dependent on exploring some of the issues and themes raised here. Finishing this story clarified the direction I needed to take with that one. Of course, writing being what it is, working on this story and the next chapter of Another Night prompted me to start what is the "first" story in this series. Which I will share with all of you sooner or later, but it's full of sad mutual pining and characters who are too proud to admit it, so it's not getting written very quickly.

Claire stands outside the fortress of stone and stained glass, fighting the urge to knock on the door and wait for admittance. Not that the façade doesn’t look welcoming – the exterior of the building is clean and softened by the same gentle April sun that warms the back of her neck. Tree branches are softened by flower blossoms or the fresh green of new leaves; window boxes are planted sparsely, leaving their new inhabitants room to grow.

In point of fact, it’s nothing about the _building_ that’s keeping her on the outside looking in. Instead, it’s her own memories – the image of her abuela’s hands holding a worn rosary; her parents and their more liberal Protestantism and the pragmatic houses of worship they attended; her own childish understanding of a foreign catechism; the stolen glimpse of Matt crossing himself after painfully stowing his suit away under his father’s robes. She stands on the sidewalk outside the church and hears the echoes left by generations of the faithful and penitent. Wonders how one lapsed…whatever she is…fits in.

She’s supposed to meet Matt here, but had wanted (needed) time to come to terms with the battlefield of his choosing. No, that’s not quite right. It’s not about the battlefield. And why is she suddenly thinking of some half-remembered tale about Cain and cities of refuge?

A cloud passes over the sun, dimming the brilliance of whitewashed stone, turning the church back into a building of stone and mortar rather than a citadel of the holy. She takes a deep breath and the stairs at a jog, opens one of the doors just wide enough to slip inside. The door closes quietly, leaving her not in the lobby she was expecting, but in the sanctuary. It makes the experience of entering in somehow more fraught with meaning, though hell if she knows what that meaning is, exactly.

She doesn’t even know why she’s here. No, that’s not really true either. She’d already arranged to meet Matt here and she’d just needed a moment to sit quietly and absorb the stillness. (Everything about her relationship with Matt has always moved at the speed of light, and this tentative understanding with him is no different.) (Is that a signal of a forthcoming crash and burn, or just the strength of how easily they seem to fall into sync?)

(Maybe Matt hears those echoes too.) (Maybe he’s better at remembering the moral of all those stories instead of just the brutality.)

Claire looks around her. Is worrying about her potentially romantic relationships _here_ going to end with her being struck by lightning? Or is that just the memory of being thwacked by her abuela’s paper fan when she’d grown bored of the priest’s homily and started whispering a little too loudly with her sister?

(Somewhere at home, her grandmother’s rosary and her fan are tucked away in a drawer somewhere, probably still smelling faintly of perfume.)

The sanctuary is empty but for Claire. It’s eleven o’clock on a Tuesday morning – the nine-to-fiver’s are all at work. She ghosts around the perimeter, examining the play of light through stained glass and the objects they touch. The place is done up – down? – for Lent. She imagines what it might look like on Easter morning, wonders if the weather will cooperate and splay the colorful outlines of the Apostles across snowy linen and the upraised trumpets of Easter lilies. (She will be on shift and anticipating her sister’s Easter ham, the bosom of her family the closest she’ll come to a gathering of the faithful.)

Her circuit takes her past a wall of votives. She pauses, then digs around in her coat pockets, her fist closing around a wrinkled bill. She drops it in the donation box and lights a candle, murmurs her abuela’s name and a half-remembered prayer. Not out of any real belief, but out of honor and love, and the memory of strong, wrinkled hands rolling beads between brown fingers.

Claire stands there for awhile, half-smiling at a single lit candle out of two-dozen, thinking how chagrined her grandmother would be at her forgetfulness. Probably not _surprised_ , but chagrined.

“Lo siento, Abeula.” Claire taps one finger against the rim of the votive’s glass holder and turns around.

It draws the attention of a man sitting in one of the back pews. She wonders if this is Matt’s priest, or if St. Patrick’s rates additional ecclesiastical staff. He seems to allow her to look her fill, as if he’s watched her tour of the room and understands her need to familiarize herself with all its aspects.

But there comes a point where weighing her options and opinions transforms into staring, and staring is rude, so she walks down the main aisle with the same gait that’d carried her around the room’s edges. He waits patiently (she supposes priests must be good at that kind of thing) for her to reach him. He employs her own level gaze on her as she sits in the pew in front of him; Claire raises her chin and makes no excuses for her aimlessness.

“You’re not Catholic,” is what he chooses to lead off with.

Claire flushes a little (she doesn’t know why; it hadn’t sounded like an indictment) and shrugs. “How can you tell?”

“Little things.” He leans forward and rests folded hands on the back of her pew. “Lack of ingrained mannerisms, a curiosity about and awareness of the space. A bit of a look of a stranger in a strange land, to borrow a phrase.” He gestures around them with steepled index fingers. “You don’t take any of what you see for granted; means the sight probably isn’t familiar.”

“You’re a regular sleuth.”

“I’m a student of human nature. Comes with the calling.” He finally holds one hand out to her. “Father Lanthom.”

She takes the offered hand, shakes it. “Claire.” Something about his expression makes it seem as if her name explains more than just her identity.

“I don’t suppose you’re the same Claire I’m supposed to be meeting later.”

“That depends on what you’ve been told about me.” She hadn’t known Matt had actually made an appointment. Now she feels a bit like an ass. “Not that you could let on to anything though. Right? I mean, what a guy says to his priest is…” She laughs a little and shakes her head at her own blundering. “It’s like HIPAA.”

“Essentially.” The Father doesn’t lose his patient expression. “It’s a little more restrictive, but essentially. Is that what you do? Work in healthcare?”

“I’m a nurse. At Metro-General.”

“Is that how you met Matthew? In the hospital?”

“Oh. Go- gosh, no. You can’t get him within a hundred yards of a hospital unless he thinks someone else needs one. I, uh…” She remembers the unmasked blind man bleeding out on her couch while attempting to downplay the seriousness of his situation. “I found him on an off-night. Helped him get back on his feet.” She speaks in euphemism because as private as conversations with priests might be, their location isn’t.

“He’s fortunate to know you, I’m sure.”

“I…uh… I certainly hope so.” Claire looks down at her hands. Folds them one way and then another. “I want him to be.”

The walls must be thick; she can barely hear any of the ever-present city noise. Maybe that’s why Matt likes to come here. Or at least in part.

“You know, the seal of confession extends even to non-Catholics. If that’s what you came here for.”

“Umm…” She doesn’t think making the best of bad choices is a sin, so that’s not why she came. “Does it look bad if I say I don’t think I need to confess to anything?”

“God’s the one in the business of looking into hearts. I’m just a mediator.” He sighs. “I’m not so bad in the sitting and listening department, though.”

“You don’t mind?”

“I think, considering the care you were using to choose your words earlier, that you don’t have a lot of people to discuss Matthew with.”

It’s not _Matt_ that’s hard to talk about, but she gets the point. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“You said you hoped Matt felt fortunate for knowing you. Why wouldn’t he?”

And it all kind of…bubbles up. She’s met Foggy, but there’d been something there, some desperation on his part to ignore the reality of what Matt chose to do with himself. So as much as she’d found someone else who _knew_ Matt, she’d also found someone she couldn’t really spill her worries to. But now…

“I was the first person to know about his night job. Did you know that? And that was…intense. It was…it was the two of us against…not the world, but against these terrible odds. And maybe we could have maintained that. Except…” She shrugs. “Well, there’s a difference between being the first person to know something, and the only one. I couldn’t…” Be enough. Give enough. Lose that much. She shrugs again. “I had to pull back.”

“And Matt wanted more?”

Did. Does. They both _do_.

“Not the way you mean it. We both…flinched. But the rest… Just because we refused to act on it doesn’t mean the emotional connection went away.” And it’d hurt. “And you know Matt. He’s nothing if not self-reliant. My distancing myself doesn’t mean he rushed out to tell someone else.” She glances over. “I hear you figured it out on your own.”

The father shrugs, as if to say this is her story.

“I almost took it back. Tried to, as the city was blowing up around us. But he wouldn’t hear it then, and later… Well, you don’t need to be in the car with a crash test dummy to know what’ll happen when it hits the wall. So I left town instead. Promised to be there when he needed me, to sew him up when he needed it, and ran away.”

“Is that a confession?”

Claire huffs out a small laugh. “Not really. A nurse who isn’t taking care of herself can’t take care of anyone else. I don’t regret my choices.” Not really. “And Matt didn’t self-destruct or get himself killed, like I was half-afraid. In fact, he got better. Didn’t just avoid me, but honestly didn’t need me.”

“Is that what changed?”

“Hmm?” Lost in her own thoughts, in a formless worry that’d never faded no matter how many nights passed without any house-calls, Claire isn’t sure what he means.

“Something changed. By your own admission you were out of Matthew’s life as anything but an on-call nurse. But here we are. So what changed?”

Everything. Nothing.

“My aunt’s birthday was last Sunday.”

 

+

 

She skims over the details of family tradition. Of sisters breaking in at stupidly early hours to make breakfast, of spending the entire day with a loved one even if the itinerary isn’t entirely to one’s taste. Of going to an unfamiliar church, listening to unfamiliar songs surrounded by strangers. The pastor had been as new and unknown as anything else. But the Bible passage had been familiar. Until it wasn’t.

“I don’t think what I took away from the teaching was what he intended. I think I was supposed to be at least a little penitent when it was over.”

“What was the passage?”

She smiles gently. “The part where Jesus goes to the garden to pray and his friends keep falling asleep instead of…I don’t know. Bearing witness? Supporting him at least by being awake? But it felt like he was talking to me. It’s been a long time since I’ve identified with a story like that.”

“And who exactly were you identifying with? Christ, or the disciples?”

“How arrogant does it sound if I say both?”

Lanthom is silent for several moments, as if considering an answer. “There’s a multi-denominational association that meets once a month to discuss the needs of those who live in Hell’s Kitchen. We try to avoid debates because there are many things that we don’t agree on…open-handed issues, so to speak. But there’s one young man who attends who said something that…that I’ve known to be true but had never heard expressed. He said that the stories we teach from the scriptures _happened_ , and that they _are_ happening. All around us. Every day. So for you to hear a story, understand maybe what is a single set out of many underlying concepts from it that can be applied to your own life, and then to empathize with multiple viewpoints… I’d say that makes you a well-rounded person. Not an arrogant one. At least not in this instance.”

“Thanks?”

“Well, arrogance takes many forms. The man who says, ‘Woe is me, my sins are too numerous to count and too dark to forgive,’ is just as arrogant as the man who says he has no sins.”

She’s never looked at the matter that way.

“But we’re straying away from the original topic. What is it that you took away from the sermon?”

“Support systems.” He doesn’t say anything to prompt her to continue, but he looks like he understands where she’s coming from. Which is good, because she still doesn’t quite have the words to explain things to herself. (Honesty, she’s surprised she managed to make enough sense to get Matt to agree to anything, much less whatever it is that they’re doing.) “And not just that Matt desperately needs a support system, but that I can’t be with him if I don’t have one. I can do everything in the world to support him, but the both of us being entirely wrapped up in the world he’s created isn’t…healthy.”

“Not everyone would be willing to admit that. Are you this honest with Matthew?”

“Yeah.” Claire can hear the uncertainty in her own voice, as if she isn’t sure if that’s always a good thing. (And she’s not. She’s had relationships end because her insistence on honest communication put too much strain on things.) (She’s afraid that if she’s not careful, it’ll drive Matt away too.)

“He must appreciate that.”

She doesn’t say anything. Isn’t capable of saying anything. This, after all, is why she’s here. Why she’s really here. It hadn’t just been about looking around and getting comfortable before Matt got here. A lot of the reason she’s here is for… Well, it all comes back to not having a support system, doesn’t it?

“Claire, are you alright?”

She stares down at her hands, fingers knotted together so tightly that the skin around her knuckles looks stretched and pale. “I…I don’t have anyone else I can talk to about this. Not really.”

“This? You mean Matt?”

Is this weird? This has to be weird, going to a priest for relationship counseling. Still… “I’ve never gone into a relationship with so many conditions and caveats.”

“Such as?”

“Ummm…” So many of them are Matt-specific that using them as examples seems unfair. Of course she’s never been in a relationship where she wants full disclosure about any injuries and she gets final say over how much they’re going to limit any extracurricular activity. “I’ve never made meeting anyone’s friends a criteria for dating. I’ve never explicitly set limits for how quickly a relationship will develop. I’ve never told anyone that I needed daily reassurance that they’d made their way home safely.” She shakes her head and closes her eyes as if in prayer. “I’ve never felt like I needed to keep both hands on the steering wheel in order to control a relationship. I’ve never _wanted_ to feel in control of a relationship.”

Still doesn’t, for that matter. And maybe that’s what she’s really choking on. She and Matt want to be together, they’ve settled that. And she trusts the depth and sincerity of his feelings. What she doesn’t trust is that in his drive to be _enough_ , that he won’t blow past all of her boundaries. (Or the boundaries of common sense altogether.)

Perhaps she came to confess after all.

When she opens her eyes again, Lanthom appears to be giving her wordy gush of an explanation more thought than she’d given in saying any of it. Which, of course, makes her feel as if the weight of all those fears is justified. Except his next question is anything but judgmental or condemning.

“What happens if you retain control in this relationship you’re building?”

“Nothing good.” Stagnation. Matt doesn’t grow as an individual. _She_ doesn’t grow as an individual. They don’t grow as a couple. It opens the door to emotional abuse and manipulation. It impedes the development of trust.

“Okay.” He leans back in his pew and sighs. “Do you want my opinion?”

He’ll give it to her straight. Claire realizes that as she meets his gaze and considers the question. They may barely be acquainted, but he’ll give her an honest answer.

Her nod is wary but firm.

“Alright. It seems to me that you’ve chosen to take a cautious but thoughtful approach to developing a relationship with Matthew in light of the…complications…presented by his chosen vocation. You’ve expressed yourself as someone who is capable of self-assessment and empathy. You’re dedicated to the wellbeing of others but you also understand the need to take care of yourself – you’ve probably seen other people, maybe even people you respected and looked up to, burn themselves out. You recognize healthy and unhealthy behaviors. You value honesty and, since we’re talking about Matthew, probably justice as well.”

Her thoughts must be coming across loud and clear even though she doesn’t interrupt. (Namely, this is some personal shit he’s laying down after a ten minute conversation.) Lanthom waves a hand as if his words are nothing. “Student of human nature, remember? Now, if you’re asking me if you’re doing the right thing or not, I can’t tell you that. What I _can_ tell you is that you don’t seem to be taking unreasonable precautions. Strength calls to strength; there is no fault in ensuring your partner is strong enough to meet you on a level playing field. As long as you continue to be honest with Matthew about all of this, as long as he’s a participant in these discussions and not just the recipient, then in time this too shall pass.”

Claire won’t lie; she’d been hoping for an answer that was distinctly black or white. Not that the world is, especially not the one she inhabits with Matt. But there is comfort in this evaluation of her decisions. She’s still uneasy with the number of limitations she’s set on them in an effort to dictate how their romantic relationship will develop, but it’s as much for her sake as his. Matt might seem, from her point of view, too eager to please, too ready to follow her lead in this, but she’s still a little gun shy herself. Still reeling a little from the rollercoaster their early relationship had been. This is as much about giving her time to find her footing as it is providing a common framework for what she feels is a healthy relationship.

Patience and honesty.

“If I might make one more observation?”

Claire’s eyes refocus as she’s called out of her thoughts, but her nod of permission comes much more easily.

“You need to tell someone about all of this.”

 

+

 

The sanctuary is quiet. A thought bothers her that there’s a different or better word she should be using for the room, but she has no idea what it might be and she has other, bigger concerns.

The Father had had a point. Meeting Matt’s support system is fine. Maybe even a good thing. But eventually she’s going to need to talk about Matt to someone who knows _her_ , not just with someone who can commiserate. There’s value in having someone around who has known you long enough to see patterns in your personality or behavior and can point those things out when you’re blind to them. It’s just daunting to contemplate. (Opening herself and her choices up to judgment, allowing more people into this secret world that she and Matt have created around themselves, finding the right words to explain the mess and the potential of _them_.) (Does she wait until after she’s introduced him around, or is this the kind of thing that should happen sooner rather than later?)

Lanthom had left her to her contemplations, seeing as how she really had gotten here early. Time slips away as she listens to the muted traffic and thinks things over. Still, she’s not surprised when she hears the quiet _tak, tak, tak_ of Matt’s cane. Is even less surprised that he takes a seat next to her, close but not so close that he’s inside her personal space. It’s a careful, measured kind of distance, one that won’t make her move away if she’s uncomfortable and makes moving closer her choice. Deliberate. They are still very deliberate with each other. So she’s deliberate in setting her hand on the pew between them, palm up, fingers relaxed even after his fingers slide into the empty spaces between each one.

“I didn’t think you went in for this kind of thing.” His voice is quiet, building a different sort of isolation around them. One built of intimacy instead of shadows.

“Churches?” She shrugs. “Churches can be…beautiful. It’s the rest of it that’s a struggle.”

“God is always moving, therefore faith is restless.” It’s his turn to shrug when she turns her head to look at him. “Something I heard somewhere.”

It’s still a novelty to see him in what she thinks of as his daylight clothes. The buttoned down points on his collar, the knot of his tie pulled close against his throat, the glasses, the cane… The other side of the coin. (She thinks back to that one morning, of the gentle smile that’d taken the place of the ironic one she’d gotten used to so quickly. It’d been another form of intimacy; it’s no wonder it’d hurt so much to have him pull away only hours later. He’d let her see so much, let her in so far even as she was asking what he did to pay the rent.)

“What?”

She shakes her head and squeezes his fingers between hers. “I, um, I need to confess something.”

“We’re in the right place.” But he returns the pressure of her fingers, a steady, comforting warmth that makes her realize that she’s essentially spent the last hour sitting inside a stone box in early April. (Her hands are cold.)

“I’ve already met Father Lanthom.”

“Oh.” His eyebrows do that thing where he looks like he’s confused and would like to _not_ be confused except he can’t figure out how to be polite in his questioning.

“I got here really early.”

“I guess so.” His expression settles into something more thoughtful. “Did you want to leave then, or –”

“I could go for some coffee. And I think I really only piqued his interest, so we should keep our appointment. So.”

And there it is, that smile that’s full of tenderness and welcoming. They stand up and edge out of the row they’re in, then Claire tucks her hand into his elbow and lets him lead the way.

**Author's Note:**

> The album Creation by The Pierces was instrumental to the writing of this fic (pun!), especially the first track. But the entire album is frankly one of my favorites ever, and just about all of them give me Clairedevil feelings. So go listen to it.
> 
> *Some of Claire's experiences are based on my own. For example I have way too many stories floating around in my head and had to actually look up whether or not Cain was in any way connected with the establishing of cities of refuge - where people who'd normally die for whatever it is they did could go and not be killed - and he wasn't. So.
> 
> **The full quote that Matt is paraphrasing is from _The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life_ by Os Guinness. The quote is "God is on the move. Faith therefore means restlessness." Which I think is beautiful because faith shouldn't be a static dead thing, it should be something that is always struggled with.


End file.
